Penguin Days — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.”
~ Allen Ginsberg ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

The Haunted Pen has 20 Tips to Proofread Like a Professional HERE. I particularly love the red sign.

K. M. Allen has a great post HERE on Character Description. Don’t miss this one.

Janice Hardy has a list of red flag works HERE that indicate telling rather than showing. Her posts are always useful.

Last week, I offered a gently-read ARC of The Dog Who Lost His Bark by Eoin Colfer to one of you.  This week’s lucky winner is Sue Heavenrich. If you don’t know Sue, she is a writer from up-state New York who writes about science and runs two blogs. Awesome. I can hardly run one blog. You can find out more about her and see her blogs by clicking on the titles, and that is worth doing. They are Archimedes Notebook and Sally’s Bookshelf. Congratulations, Sue! I will get your book out to you soon.

This week I have another book that seems to be for the young elementary readers, but I think it has the possibility of being good for younger middle-grade readers, especially reluctant readers, and it could also be a good read-aloud and discussion-starter about autism spectrum disorder. Here is the review I wrote for the Manhattan Book Review about Penguin Days by Sara Leach. I have to tell you, I really love this little book. There is so much humor used about a pretty serious topic.

Lauren and her family have to take a very, very long car ride to go to Auntie Joss’s wedding and Lauren doesn’t like to go to new places or do different things. Her cousins will be there, but Lauren would rather stay home and be with her friend Irma. And she is going to have to be a flower girl and that is different from anything she has done before. She doesn’t want to. And when Lauren doesn’t want to do something, she has a hard time controlling her anger. She has trouble looking people in the eye and being in new situations.

Author Sara Leach has written an excellent story told from the point of view of a young girl who has Autism Spectrum Disorder and has trouble dealing with so many things. The voice of Lauren is pitch-perfect and really expresses her specialness well. The infusion of humor makes this very accessible to all children. Charming illustrations by Rebecca Bender complete this sweet story. This book will give parents and teachers an excellent portal to difficult discussions about the Autism Spectrum and the many children affected by it.

No giveaway this week. I donated my hardbound copy to my granddaughter’s school library. If you are reading this in your email, please click HERE to get to my blog, then click on the title of the post, and leave a comment. And don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at the Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.